Only for the most extreme cases. That’s part of Government’s continuing stance on the death penalty, which remains on T&T law books and which currently applies to 30 persons on Death Row—including one female. Speaking on the eve of this week’s international Anti-Death Penalty Congress in Spain, where the global abolitionist movement will caucus, Attorney GeneralAnand Ramlogan said, “This is an emotional political issue with powerful arguments on both sides. “There may be doubt whether it is a potent and effective deterrent, but it is difficult to argue with victims who rest their case on the principle of retribution. In the final analysis, it is a matter that should be decided by the people.”

Global focus will fall on the issue of the death penalty in the Caribbean when the fifth annual Anti-Death Penalty Congress takes place in Madrid, Spain, from tomorrow to Saturday. The event has been organised annually since 2001 by the Ensemble Contre la Peine du Mort (Together Against the Death Penalty) and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. It is being held this year on invitation of the Spanish government with support from the French, Norwegian and Swiss governments. The summit, expected to be attended by 1,500 people from 90 countries, unites members of international civil society, politicians and legal experts to heighten the global lobby for the abolition of the death penalty.

Part of the gathering involves 200 participants from countries such as T&T and others regionally,, which still retain the death penalty. Amnesty International estimates 13 of the 58 states that retain the death penalty are in the English-speaking Caribbean. Apart from special focus on the Arab and African regions in this year’s programme, the conference’s first day activities feature a session on the death penalty in the Caribbean region. Feature speakers include T&T’s Leela Ramdeen, who will present a paper representing the Greater Caribbean for Life group. This involves seven people from T&T, Belize, Guatemala, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and St Vincent & the Grenadines.

While deeply sympathising with the victims of violent crime, the group doesn’t believe the death penalty makes societies safer. Members, however, believe abolition of the death penalty in T&T and the Caribbean will require a multi-faceted approach that addresses issues including improving the criminal justice and administration of justice systems, tackling crime and violence, addressing victims’ rights, enhancing education systems 1` and changing the minds of people. As for T&T’s positon on the death penalty issue, Ramlogan told the T&T Guardian: “There is no doubt the death penalty can be a deterrent, as it has an effect on the psyche of the criminal, but I’m aware that there’s a raging academic debate on this issue. “Victims and supporters argue it has nothing to do with the concept of deterrence, because it has to do with retribution and the enforcement of the law. Abolitionists argue that it is cruel and inhumane, is not an effective deterrent and ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves the whole world blind.”

Ramlogan added, “As the duly-elected government, we’re sworn to uphold and enforce the laws of this land and therefore duty bound to facilitate and advance its implementation as long as it remains on the books.” On the status of the Government’s moves to try and implement the law regarding hangings following its 2012 plan for legislation to categorise murders, Ramlogan said: “The Government did introduce a bill to categorise murders and introduce some measure of flexibility and discretion so that the death penalty would not be automatically imposed in every case. We were influenced in this regard by the American jurisprudence which distinguishes murders according to the particular facts and circumstances in which the murder occurred (hence, for example, murder in the first, second and third degree). “Unfortunately, this bill was not passed because the Opposition voted against it. The Government, however, has no difficulty with the proposition that the death penalty should be discretionary. We are, however, equally committed and duty-bound to implement the law as it presently stands.”

On whether the matter would be taken further, the AG said soon after the debate, he wrote Opposition leader Dr Keith Rowley several letters “in the hope that we can have some meaningful dialogue on this issue.” “Unfortunately, there was no response. The Opposition has managed to maintain the contradictory position that it supports the death penalty but cannot support or propose any legislation to facilitate its implementation,” Ramlogan said. Since some quarters believe T&T, like other regional states, may soon have to take the death penalty off its books, where does T&T stand in this scenario? Ramlogan said, “I believe the overwhelming majority of the population favours the retention of the death penalty. The murder rate is high and there are many who believe in the principles of retention and deterrence. “The Government is in favour of categorising murders so that the death penalty can be reserved for the most extreme cases with the most brutal of heinous murders. The Opposition objected to this and we were forced to remove it from the proposed amendment to the Constitution. This, however, remains the Government’s position.”

Considering the 37 per cent reduction in serious crime (from 2012 to 2013 figures), asked whether Government still sees the death penalty as absolutely necessary, Ramlogan said, “The death penalty does not apply to most serious crimes. It does, however, apply to murder and the murder rate is still high even though it is on the decline.” With some polls on T&T showing a large part of the population favouring hanging, the AG was asked whether this can be expected before the end of the term. “We cannot implement the death penalty without an amendment to the Constitution. This requires a special majority in Parliament for which Opposition support is necessary,” he said. “In Jamaica the opposition recently joined forces with the government to vote to amend the Jamaica constitution to facilitate the implementation of the death penalty. We can only live in hope.” With the situation in limbo, the AG added, “The death penalty, part of our law, is what we inherited from our colonial masters. The Privy Council has ruled this is a valid part of T&T’s binding laws. “Both the Opposition and People’s Partnership have publicly declared their commitment to the implementation of the death penalty in response to the overwhelming public support and demand for it.” The AG added, “There is no universal consensus on the morality or correctness of the death penalty. It forms part of the laws and is in fact implemented in many countries, including certain states in the USA, Singapore and China.”

Opposition PNM says….

Opposition PNM deputy leader Marlene McDonald said the party stands by its position in favour of the death penalty, but also maintains its position against Government’s recent legislation on it. PNM Senator Fitzgerald Hinds added, “The death penalty issue is to me more of an intellectual exercise more than emotional.” He said matters were often overturned at Privy Council level since that jurisdiction had abolished the death penalty. “They engage arguments in a rigorous exercise so it becomes a matter of their legal wit against that of Caribbean attorneys,” he added.
“So we have to be very intellectual in our approach on this. When the Government came with the last piece of legislation we examined it thoroughly and found where the Privy Council would have walked right over the stipulations of the bill.” Hinds added, “We must now await what new measures Government will present, then see whether that can meet Privy Council resistance.”

THE MADRID MANDATE

CONGRESS TOPICS: include abolition and alternative sentences in the world, juveniles and the death penalty in the world, drug trafficking and the death penalty, legal representation in capital cases globally, the Middle East, Iran, African and Asian regions and the death penalty, terrorism and abolition, the state of abolition in the USA, Europe and future strategies, death penalty and torture, abolitionist strategies.

POLITICAL FIGURES EXPECTED: President of Benin, Foreign Affairs Ministers of Spain, France, Swiss Confederation, Norway, Mauritania, deputy prime ministers of Luxembourg and Belgium, UN high commissioner for human rights, the general secretary of the Council of Europe, president of the Commission of Human Rights of the Iraq Parliament, president of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, and the former French Justice minister, who authored the French law that abolished France’s death penalty.

Lawmakers are eager to appear resolute in the fight against crime, but seem to forget that certainty of punishment, not severity, is the real deterrent

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” said Mahatma Gandhi.

The death penalty is unjust and inhuman. Its continued use is a stain on a society built on humanitarian values, and it should be abolished immediately.

Many think that there could be nothing wrong with the death penalty as the Indian Constitution allows for capital punishment, which means that the founding fathers of this country must have also fully approved of it. In reality, several members of the Constituent Assembly were firmly opposed to the death penalty.

The architect of the Constitution, Babasaheb Ambedkar, admitted in the Constituent Assembly that people may not follow non-violence in practice but “they certainly adhere to the principle of non-violence as a moral mandate which they ought to observe as far as they possibly can.” With this in mind, he said, “the proper thing for this country to do is to abolish the death sentence altogether.”

On June 3, 1949, Professor Shibbanlal Saxena, a freedom fighter who had been on death row for his involvement in the Quit India Movement, spoke in the Constituent Assembly of how he had seen innocent people being hanged for murder during his days in prison. Proposing the abolition of the death penalty, he said that the avenue of appealing to the Supreme Court “will be open to people who are wealthy, who can move heaven and earth, but the common people who have no money and who are poor will not be able to avail themselves” of it.

Miscarriage of justice is, in fact, one of the biggest concerns about the death penalty. Is it possible that someone could be wrongly hanged in 21st century India? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Studies conducted by Amnesty International and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties have shown that the process of deciding who should be on death row is arbitrary and biased. The Supreme Court has itself admitted on several occasions that there is confusion and contradiction in the application of the death penalty.

Instances of innocence

Last year, 14 eminent retired judges wrote to the President, pointing out that the Supreme Court had erroneously given the death penalty to 15 people since 1996, of whom two were hanged. The judges called this “the gravest known miscarriage of justice in the history of crime and punishment in independent India.”

Some argue that the death penalty is the only way to deter heinous crime, especially violence against women and children. But a comprehensive study done last year in the United States found that there is no credible evidence that the death penalty has any deterrent effect on crime.

The “Innocence Project” in the United States [a national litigation and public policy organisation dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system] has found, on the other hand, several cases where innocent people were given the death sentence. One such case is that of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the deaths of his three young daughters. In 2009, reinvestigation of the case raised serious doubts in the appreciation of forensic evidence in the case and the judge concluded that Willingham was wrongfully convicted. Another case is that of Carlos DeLuna who was executed in 1989 for the murder of a young woman some years before. In 2004, a study by Columbia Law School students brought to light the wrongful conviction of Carlos DeLuna, which turned out to be a case of mistaken identity of the actual perpetrator of the murder. Lawmakers in India find it convenient to hold up the death penalty as a symbol of their resolve to tackle crime, and choose to ignore more difficult but more effective solutions like social education and police or judicial reform. The certainty of punishment, not severity, is the real deterrent.

Rajiv Gandhi case

The death penalty is little more than judicially sanctioned murder. Justice K.T. Thomas, who headed the three member bench in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, has said that executing Perarivalan, Murugan and Santhan, convicted and sentenced to death in the case, would amount to punishing them twice for the same offence, as they had already spent 22 years in jail, the equivalent of life imprisonment.

In recent months, the Government of India has shown an alarming tendency to implement the death penalty. It is a fallacy to think that one killing can be avenged with another. For, capital punishment is merely revenge masquerading as justice. When the government is trying to create a just society where there is less violence and murder, it cannot be allowed to commit the same crime against its citizens in the name of justice.

The DMK president, Kalaignar Karunanidhi, reiterated the party’s stand last month when he called upon the Government of India to commute the death sentences of the 16 men, including seven from Tamil Nadu, who are on death row. The DMK president had made similar pleas to the Centre in August 2011 and October 2006. This has been the party’s consistent position against this inhumane practice.

Rest of the world

The world is moving away from using the death penalty. The European Union has made “abolition of death penalty” a prerequisite for membership. The 65th United Nations General Assembly voted in December 2010, for the third time, in favour of abolishing the death penalty and called for a global moratorium on executions. Amnesty International reports that 140 countries — more than two-thirds of the world — do not use the death penalty any more. India needs to recognise this global trend, and act in step with it.

Ms Parke said she was disturbed by the images and reports of conditions at the two centres by credible witnesses on the ABC’s Four Corners program.

”I knew of the likelihood of problems, but the program revealed a quite serious situation and I would like an independent assessment of the adequacy of the facilities and their impact on the mental and physical health of asylum seekers, especially children,” she told Fairfax Media.

Although Ms Parke was appointed parliamentary secretary for mental health, homelessness and social housing in the February reshuffle, the mental health of those in offshore detention facilities is Mr O’Connor’s responsibility.

”I don’t think as parliamentary secretary for mental health that I cannot recognise a serious situation when it’s staring me in the face – as it did last night on Four Corners,” she said.

Ms Parke said she would discuss the issue with fellow MPs. ”This is happening, so I think you need to face up to it and deal with it.”

Dr John Valentine, a former International Health and Medical Services worker, said he had tried in vain to warn authorities that the Manus Island camp did not have sufficient medical supplies and equipment to care for children.

Despite this, he said, authorities had sent a severely anaphylactic young boy and a nine-year-old girl with anaemia and a reported history of blood transfusions to the camp.

”The whole time I was there it was just a disaster, medically,” Dr Valentine said. ”They ought not to be in Manus Island.”

Opposition immigration minister Scott Morrison said he believed the government was preparing to act on the concerns.

”We understand that the government has now taken the decision that will see families taken off Manus Island in the course of the next week or so,” Mr Morrison said. ”The Coalition had always questioned the government’s decision to put families on Manus Island. We’ve always said that the better place to do that would be on Nauru.”

But Mr O’Connor said no decision had been made to remove children from Manus.

”I haven’t been contemplating a change to the composition of people on Manus … the composition will not change on Manus province because, if we were to do that, we will see an increase in the composition of people getting on unseaworthy vessels and we will see therefore more likely an increase in the fatality of children and women.”

Meanwhile, Amnesty International said on Tuesday said that Sri Lanka was intensifying its crackdown on critics and increasing human rights abuses.

It said those who criticised the conduct of the government during the island’s civil war – including the media, the judiciary, rights activists and opposition politicians – were particularly at risk.

NEW DELHI | APR 12, 2013, outlook
There was a long delay in deciding mercy pleas by the Presidents, which was also highlighted by the Supreme Court today, but the situation changed when Pranab Mukherjee took charge on July 25 last year, disposing of petitions of 16 condemned prisoners within nine months.The petitions for clemency filed by sandalwood smuggler Veerappan‘s elder brother Gnanaprakash and his aides Simon, Meesekar Madaiah and Bilavendran were rejected by Mukherjee on February 13. The four had then obtained a stay on their execution from the apex court on February 18.

Except Dharampal and Natikar, the others had moved the apex court on April 6 and obtained a stay on their execution for four weeks.

Mukherjee also commuted the death sentence of two death row inmates, including Atbir, to life imprisonment.

Atbir was convicted for murder of his step-mother, step-sister and step-brother over property.

Dharampal was convicted for murdering five members of the family of a girl he had raped. He had committed the murders while out on parole in the rape case.

Sonia and Sanjeev were awarded death penalty for killing eight members of her family, including her parents and three children of her brother in 2001.

Gurmeet Singh was convicted of killing 13 of his family members in 1986. Jafar Ali had murdered his wife and five daughters. Suresh and Ramji killed five of their relatives.

Natikar was awarded death penalty for killing his wife and daughter, Praveen was convicted for killing four members of a family in February 1994 and Sundar Singh was convicted for murder of five members of his brother’s family in June 1989.

A recent study by Amnesty International reveals that death penalty resurfaced in India, during 2012, after a long lull in execution at the gallows, while several other nations are opting for penal system free of capital punishment.

Full Story:

In its recent report based on extensive study, Amnesty International has revealed that the death penalty has resurfaced in India in 2012.

Amnesty International claimed in London that the resumption of the death penalty was facilitated by public pressures and political motives in India.

[Jan Erik Wetzel, Death Penalty Advisor at Amnesty International]:
“The resumption of the executions in India is most likely based on a variety of reasons. One of which is public pressure and another one would be political considerations by the government in place.”

[Ravi Prakash, Senior Advocate]:
“Death sentence acts as a deterrent and therefore, death sentence has been retained in the Indian Penal Code and by our legal system. But the court has said that it should be given only in a very rare of the rarest circumstances and not keeping in view that way of the retribution, you are conferring the death sentence on anybody.”

In November, India carried out its first execution since 2004 when the country hanged Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the lone survivor of the militant squad that killed 166 people in the 2008 attacks on the financial capital Mumbai.

Kasab’s execution sparked off celebrations across India.

People burst firecrackers and exchanged sweets among themselves to hail this execution as a justice for the victims of Mumbai attacks.

India had also recently approved a tougher new law to punish sex crimes, including death for repeat rape offenders, after the fatal gang rape of a student in December.

That event sparked unprecedented protests over the treatment of women in the country.

[Abhas Kumar, Student of New Delhi]:
“Death punishment in India is necessary to warn and evoke fear in the minds of people. Criminal activities are increasing. Criminals here are not afraid to commit crimes because they feel that they will be released from jail in two or three days and above all, the trial against them takes a long time.”

The Amnesty International study said that besides India, executions resumed in other countries of the Asia-Pacific region including Japan and Pakistan, after it seemed that they had done away with the punishment.

Published: April 9, 2013

At least four countries that had not used the death penalty in some time — India, Japan, Pakistan and Gambia — resumed doing so last year, the rights organization Amnesty International says in its annual compilation of capital punishment trends.

Amnesty, the London-based group that has made abolition of the death penalty one of its signature causes, also says the number of executions in Iraq nearly doubled in 2012 compared with a year earlier, which it characterized as “an alarming escalation.”

Nonetheless, its yearly review, released early Wednesday in London, said the overall shift away from death sentences and executions continued in 2012.

“In many parts of the world, executions are becoming a thing of the past, ” Salil Shetty, secretary general of the organization, said in a statement. Amnesty said only 21 countries were recorded as having carried out executions in 2012, the same as in 2011, but down from 28 countries a decade earlier.

It said at least 682 executions were known to have been carried out worldwide in 2012, two more than 2011, and at least 1,722 death sentences were imposed in 58 countries, compared with 1,923 imposed in 63 countries the year before.

“Only one in 10 countries in the world carries out executions,” Mr. Shetty said. “Their leaders should ask themselves why they are still applying a cruel and inhumane punishment that the rest of the world is leaving behind.”

Amnesty also pointed out that its compilation excluded what it said were the thousands of executions it believes were carried out in China, where the number of capital punishment cases is kept secret. The organization said it still believed China remained the world’s top executioner.

Besides China, the top executors in 2012, Amnesty said, were Iran with 314, Iraq with 129, Saudi Arabia with 79 and the United States with 43. The report also noted that only nine American states executed prisoners in 2012, compared with 13 the year before, and that in April, Connecticut became the 17th state to abolish the death penalty.

Amnesty International has urged the government to remove death penalty as a form of punishment from the anti-rape bill.

NEW DELHI: A day after the Union Cabinet approved the anti-rape law, Amnesty International has expressed reservations on the proposed legislation, demanding that provisions like death penalty and immunity for forces under AFSPA be done away with while including marital rape.Several contentious provisions that were part of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance have been retained in the new bill, like exclusion of marital rape and including death penalty for rapists-murderers and rapists who are repeat offenders.The human rights organization is in favour of age of consent being lowered to 16 years. In its recommendations, AI said Parliament should eliminate sanctions on consensual sexual activities between adolescents, while protecting all children against sexual abuse. “The law should protect the additional rights of alleged perpetrators under the age of 18 as stipulated in international standards,” it said in a statement advocating protection of juveniles’ rights.

Amnesty also said the Indian Penal Code should reflect the different forms of violence against women in a comprehensive manner by removing the exception for sexual assault by a husband.

The organization urged the government to remove death penalty as a form of punishment from the bill. It said Indian law should clarify that persons sentenced to life imprisonment for violence against women are allowed the same opportunity for executive/judicial review of their sentence as other prisoners in India. The law must also clearly eliminate sentences of life without the possibility for release for offences committed by persons under the age of 18.

According to Amnesty International, 140 countries have abolished the death penalty. In 2012, only one country, Latvia, abolished the death penalty for all crimes. In 2011, 21 countries around the world were known to have carried out executions and at least 63 to have imposed death sentences. See alsoU.S. Figures.

Vedanta’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiative Vedanta Khushi is motivated and self driven PR exercise to create emotionally perfect image in the eyes of the world. Vedanta has so much to clean in their own house; they do not need a social cause to hunt outside of their own pitch. How can? on one side Vedanta is kicking the dinner plates of parents and Vedanta KHUSHI on other side is offering free food to kids in lunch boxes . I have tried to unfold the truth.

I have never been to Odisha , but the kind of reports I am reading these days has wounded my soul, now throwing Vedanta out of India is the voice of my soul.

While packing Lunch boxes with aluminum foil everyday in our kitchen, while buying fresh burger from any eating joint , do we ever have a thought , that after how much of revolution , politics and bloodshed this piece of aluminum reached in my Kitchen ? . Thousands hectare of green forest land had been chopped? Hundreds of villages, communities and natural resources would have been sacrificed, the harsh truth is after thousands of such stories, and aluminum foil reaches in our kitchens.

Vedanta has suffocated the life of Adivasis in Niyamgiri foothills. The entire area is overlapped with Red Mud. Most of humans, animals, birds and insects are infected with skin diseases. Proper medical facilities are unavailable; there is no sign of hospital. By pressures, by vicious means, by force, by paying less, Vedanta bought the farming and forest land of Local tribes. They cheated them by providing technical training to make them skillful workers in Vedanta Mines and factories, as soon as land got transferred, Vedanta thrown them out.

Red mud has converted all crop fields and forest into waste land, the vein is spreading. The river Vasamdhara is the main source of water for all constituents of habitats in Niyamgiri. Vedanta’s Red Mud resulted in converting drinkable water of Vasamdhara to polluted and toxic waste; it is causing dangerous skin diseases and cancer. Even Animals and birds are rejecting it to drink. The situation of Vasamdhara is same from Niyamgiri till Kalingapatnam. Amnesty International broke this harsh truth.

Niyamgiri foothills is a treasure of bauxite, Bauxite is a main component to make aluminum. According to statistic, Niyamgiri foothills contain 72 lakh million ton of bauxite. The average cost of 1 ton bauxite is approx 6500 INR, whereas all 72 lakh million ton is not awarded to Vedanta for mining. The prices are fixed very little, when Government awards a license to mine, it is simple to understand the covetous intentions of Vedanta by looking at the history and biology of Vedanta.

Government and Vedanta has fixed the price of Niyamgiri foothills, the predators have camped and pasted like a woodworm. Vedanta Aluminum Ltd is camped with crooked intentions in Laljiganj located at south Odisha . A fake kingdom of 700 Hectares expanded by cheating legally and eating illegally, hooks or crook they used every evil outfit.

Village Bundela initiated the revolution against Vedanta few years back, many voices were raised, and dozens of revolutionaries are martyred. There are few Tribal’s if they further replaced from this areas, they will lose their name from World map. They are already on the way of extinction because of Vedanta what a Price tag we have placed on forest and tribes in this materialistic world. We are the silent observer of slaughter of Humanity.

Both logic and consciousnesses say that Vedanta must go back to London .

Corporate mining giant Vedanta has been violating the human rights of tribals in Odisha for many years now. The Dongria Kondhs, a primitive tribe, has been forced to relinquish their rights over their homeland, and cultural and livelihood resources to accommodate the company’s refinery and mines complex. The company’s mines, no matter how benign, will rip through a hill that is the sacred deity of the tribe that has lived in these hills for centuries without leaving a trace on the sensitive ecosystem of the biodiverse watershed forests. The hills that are slotted for mining are home to the Golden Gecko, a species that figures in IUCN’s Red List of endangered species. The Niyamgiri Mountains are the primary source of drinking water for the entire area, apart from being the source of two important rivers of Orissa Nagabali and Vamsadhara which are the lifeline of at least 50000 people downstream.

Research by Amnesty International and other local and international groups documents the serious and continuing pollution caused by the refinery’s operations. Despite the string of decisions against Vedanta, the company has failed to remedy the pollution.

In March this year shortly after Vedanta launched its public relations campaign, called ‘ creating happiness “. – a series of short films about Vedanta that aired on 37 TV channels – was an advertising campaign conceived by India’s ad guru Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy & Mather. It was launched with a technically slick film that focused on the apparent happiness of Binno, a small girl in Rajasthan, when she discovers that she can get an education from the anganwadis (child day care centres) set up by the company.

We launched our FAKING HAPPINESS CAMPAIGN with series of open letters and call for short film competition, showing the true picture of Vedanta. Following our onslaught, Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag withdrew from the jury saying they were unaware of Vedanta’s role in the competition. At the end of the day, Vedanta’s PR campaign backfired badly.

Now once again Vedanta ,as they claim have launched first social media campaign ‘ Vedanta ‘ Khushi” , and we are back with a BANG.

Here is the launch of our, ‘ VEDANTA ki VEDANA” Campaign. We launch our first Music Video- ‘Vedanta Saddan”

Lyrics are by- Rahul Yogi Deveshwar

Singer- Madan Shukla

Edited and Adapted by- Kamayani Bali Mahabal

A big THANKS to Music Inn support for the recording

The Facebook page says-KHUSHI” is a mission started on fulfilling the objective and let know the world that we do “Care for the Under-Privileged Children” – their Nutrition – Education – Health and overall development. “KHUSHI” – a Vedanta Group initiative – is a mission to bring in together like minded people, particularly youth of today, to spread this awareness amongst colleagues, friends, relatives and people around, through word of mouth or through e-medium and the way one feels would be useful.

And we know what an apt time to start the campaign when Vedanta is fighting for its existence

The Supreme Court is due to make a final decision on the challenge posed to the Environment Ministry’s stop to the Niyamgiri mine on 11th January, 2013 . In its December 6th hearing the Supreme Court concluded that the case rested on whether the rights of the indigenous Dongia Kond’s – who live exclusively on that mountain – could be considered ‘inalienable or compensatory’. The previous ruling by Environment and Forests minister Jairam Ramesh in August 2010 prevented Vedanta from mining the mountain due to violations of environment and forestry acts. The challenge to this ruling has been mounted by the Orissa Mining Corporation, a state owned company with 24% shares in the joint venture to mine Niyamgiri with Vedanta, begging questions about why a state company is lobbying so hard for a British mining company in whom it has only minority shares in this small project. (see http://infochangeindia.org/environment/features/niyamgiri-a-temporary-reprieve.html)